


Our Bodies are Worth More Than the Dust That We Can Return to the Ground Again

by antiv3nomarts



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Griddlehark, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, canon-typical meme references, gideon and harrow but this time they're dancing, gideon and harrow's relationship as they grow up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiv3nomarts/pseuds/antiv3nomarts
Summary: A.K.A. 5 Times Harrow Danced with Gideon (and 1 Time She Didn’t)
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Our Bodies are Worth More Than the Dust That We Can Return to the Ground Again

**Author's Note:**

> so! welcome! this is my first ever fic for tlt, so apologies if the character dynamics are a bit off, i'm still getting a grasp on everything. also, there aren't any scheduled chapter releases, i'll get them out when i can. i hope you have fun!
> 
> (check the end notes for credit for betas)

In the 9987th year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death, Gideon Nav took a blanket, a tiny flashlight, and Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, and she escaped the nursery. The two of them together had planned their small escape two whole days in advance, preparing a path to walk even in the darkness and looking for exits and entrances.

They walked side by side down the corridors, which were just wide enough to fit the both of them without one falling behind the other. They knew the path well by this point, moving quickly through the back corridors of Drearburh, away from where anyone would find them this late, with sharp footsteps and stifled giggles.

Soon enough, they reached the large doors of the library, their planned hiding spot until the next morning. The handles were high and the doors were heavy stone, but Gideon could lift Harrow up enough for her to grab it, and they opened it enough to slip them and the blanket inside. It slammed shut. They had done it. Both girls let out their giggles, turning into laughs, until both were on the floor with their sides aching.

“Come on, Griddle!” Harrow said, laughing lighter now. “Let’s see what we can find in here!” Harrow wasn’t normally a rulebreaker, but when informed by Gideon that she had heard some nuns talking about secret texts and devices in the library, she was instantly intrigued, and Gideon really just wanted a friend to practice sneaking around the castle with.

“I’m coming! Gimme a minute!” Gideon flicked on her flashlight, providing a small amount of light, but even a small amount was better than the all-encompassing dark that was the Drearburh Library. Around them were shelves upon shelves of books. The spines ranged anywhere from well-loved to completely destroyed, and all but a select few areas were covered in a thick layer of dust. The two of them could only reach the first few shelves up. After that, they needed a chair or a ladder, and most of the chairs were either virtually fused to the ground with age or heavy enough to crush either one of them, so they stuck to the bottom.

The interesting things, however, were going to be in the back. What were the corners of a library for if not storing secrets? So Gideon took up her flashlight, grabbed Harrow’s hand, and started into the rows of books, not stopping until she hit the back wall of the room, which took a little bit. Once she got there, she looked towards Harrowhark. “How about we start on the...” She paused, tucking her flashlight under her arm and using her fingers to check left and right. “The right side? It‘s luckier.” Harrow nodded, and they continued down the back of the library, with a solid wall to their left and looming bookcases made half of mildew and half of dust to their right.

As they walked, the bookcases started to change to storage containers, equally tall and even more daunting with lots of square bins to pull out. Gideon stopped walking. “My feet are tired. Can we stop here for now?” she fussed. “The shelves look different already, we can go further back later.”

“You promise we can keep going later?”

“Promise.” With that, they started searching through the bins. Lots of them had boring things like rocks or strange dirt, nothing like the magical weapons Gideon had imagined or the powerful necromancy books Harrow had dreamed for. It all just looked super old. Of course, eventually they found something interesting.

Upon opening their—fifteenth? sixteenth?—container, they found a strange, slim grey rectangle with a black square near the top, as well as buttons with a few symbols set in a circle. It was plugged into a small box with what looked like grating on one side.

“What do you think it does?” Gideon asked.

“No idea. I’m not pressing anything, who knows what it does. You can do it if you want.” So Gideon reached in and, to Harrow’s slight horror, pressed the top button of the circle. The black square shone bright compared to the flashlight they had brought, and they both had to blink rapidly to get used to the sudden change in light. The square had...words on it? There were a few rows of words, things like Evanescence, Flo Rida, My Chemical Romance…

Gideon piped up, “Does this make any sense to you?”

“Not at all.” Harrow answered.

Gideon chose the first one, Evanescence. A few more rows of words popped up, and these ones were slightly less confusing. With things like Bring Me To Life and My Immortal, it sounded like a necro thing, but Harrow still looked bewildered. She pressed the top button again on the first song. This brought her back to the start, so she pressed the first words again and tried a different button, the bottom one this time. Sound burst from the grate box, and the two of them jumped back. It was...pretty. A melody, much lovelier than the things Gideon heard around Drearburh. A voice came in, and while it made sense that it, too, would be from the grate box, they still both swung around looking for the nun that caught them. When they found they were safe, they turned back to the container and the strange device.

The voice was high and light, and the words were hard to hear at first, but another voice came in later, deeper and raspier. It was singing, which was not obvious to either of them at first, given how different it was from the chants they had heard since they could remember.

Gideon started rocking and swaying to the music, and given she was holding Harrow’s hand at the time, they moved together. When the beat got heavier, so did their motions. It felt simple, it felt right, it felt  _fu n._

The songs changed every so often, and they were all pretty sad and grey. While they weren’t bad, they were definitely better for Harrow than they were for Gideon. Of course, Gideon didn’t mind, it was always nice seeing her only friend smile. As one of the songs finished, Gideon said, “Let’s see what else is on here!”

“I like this!” Harrow whined.

“Well, we got to listen to this now, and we can come back to it later.” Harrow still looked annoyed, but gave up before a fight. Once again navigating through the lists of words, Gideon picked a random one this time. A strange collection of letters, LMFAO. The more familiar words came up again, but these ones were more strange. Again, Gideon picked the first one of these.

This song was very different from the first one, different from anything either of them had ever heard before. The beat was strange and robotic, the voices loud and persistent. Gideon  _ loved _ it. She moved again, like she did to the other ones, but she was more chaotic now, and it was the most fun she’d had in her whole 5 years of life. Harrow hesitated in joining her, but they were both moving after a minute or so. The voices came in on this one too, different voices. They said something along the lines of, “Party rockers in the house tonight,” which Harrow thought sounded like, “Party rock is in the house tonight,” but they hardly cared. When it ended, Gideon fiddled with the rectangle until the song started all over again, and again, and again. They kept dancing until their legs hurt and they had to lay down, huddling for warmth under their blanket. They grinned, falling into the same explosive laughter they experienced when they got into the library.

Gideon looked at Harrow then, smiling and laughing, and grasped her hand. Harrow looked at Gideon, giggling, and they just lay there, smiling, as the song repeated around them. Gideon looked at Harrow, and Harrow looked at Gideon, and for a moment they didn’t belong to the Ninth House, they didn’t belong with the skeletons or the nuns, they were just children, laughing and dancing and breaking rules while they could. And so the first dance was over.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much to kt ([Morike91 on ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morike91)) and kira ([melodies_from_beyond on ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodies_from_beyond)) from the people's tomb discord for betaing this first chapter! it was so so helpful, and this fic wouldn't be the same without you! thanks to the rest of the discord as well for helping me out when i needed it! (and, of course, encouraging me to put in party rock anthem. because of course.)


End file.
